February
was a busy month for Oquirrh Hills Middle School’s robotics team. The team
placed ninth in the statewide competition on Feb. 11 and represented the Jordan
School District at the state capitol during Utah’s Education Day on the Hill on
Feb. 24.Comprised of 11 eighth- and ninth-graders,
the team, self-titled the Velocity Raptors, is associated with FIRST Robotics
Competition, an international systemized STEM tournament for high school
students. Each year FIRST creates a challenge that competitors must accomplish
using a robot they build and program. This year, the challenge involved picking
up, carrying and throwing whiffle and exercise balls using robots—a complicated
feat for anyone, let alone middle school kids, Velocity Raptors coach Todd
Monson said.“The part I enjoy most is seeing
their perseverance getting past and beyond difficulties,” Monson said about his
team members. “They don’t give up. They keep refining and working at things,
and they don’t get frustrated.”The Velocity Raptors helped other
teams to persevere during work days, days that teams gathered together to make
adjustments to robots, and at their region competition, where they competed to
qualify for state. Ironically, helping other teams succeed is the reason the
Velocity Raptors placed third at their region match in Park City, said team
co-captain Nicholas Sill.During the last round of the Park
City qualifier, the three teams with the highest scores invited other teams to
team up with them against their opponents. One of the top teams invited the
Velocity Raptors to join its alliance because of the help they’d offered
earlier on in the competition, Nicholas said. The Velocity Raptor’s effort in
the last round brought their score up to third place.“This year, we are moving further
than I ever expected, so that is exciting,” said ninth-grader Anakin Lee, the
team’s other co-captain.In addition to the state and region competitions,
the Velocity Raptors were invited to the state Legislature’s Day on Capitol Hill
where academic groups from various districts presented what they’d learned
during the 2016–17 school year. The OHMS robotics team had an opportunity to
set up a robot battlefield and show state legislators what the team had been
working on.“There are so many schools all
across the state, so it’s really an honor to be selected for this,” Monson said.The team met for two-hour practices
twice a week to prepare their robot, making numerous adjustments and additions
to their robot prototype over time. The team rearranged their robot’s wheels to
add stabilization and arm to increase functionality. The team members also made
some superficial improvements, such as adding combat music to their robot and a
green sign created from their school’s 3D Printer.Nicholas, who led the team in the
programming aspect of the robot, and several other students used a programming
app on a smartphone to tell the robot how to move. Other students, under the
direction of Anakin were, more involved in the building of the robot’s
mechanisms. The Riverton Lowe’s donated several hundreds of dollars of supplies
for the teenagers to use when constructing the robot body.Each team member contributed unique
ideas to the construction of the robot and its programming, the captains said.“It’s really interesting when you
get all of us working together,” Anakin said. “You couldn’t do this if you were
working by yourself. You really need multiple people’s ideas to sift out the
good ones.”Besides teaching teamwork, Anakin
said his two years on Oquirrh Hill’s robotics teams have helped give him high
aspirations for the future.

“This
has kind of been my dream,” he said. “I like building stuff, and building
robots, and so this has been an experience for me of what I want to do in my
life. I am still deciding what I am planning on doing in my life, but his is
helping me learn what job—what career—I want and what classes I am going to
take in high school to progress this career.”